There Are Flowers In My Lungs (and I Can't Breathe)
by HannahCake310
Summary: Jim didn't mean to do it... but those flowers were just so beautiful and alive and he was just so rotten. Based off the prompt, "Sometimes I steal flowers from your garden on my way to the cemetery..."


It was something he did but he didn't mean to do it.

The flowers were just so bright, so _alive_ and he just felt so dark, so alone and so _dead_.

At first it was just the radiant pink ones - the Sweet Peas, according to a quick Google search. They were long stemmed and smelled just like the perfume his grandmother used to wear. The petals were bright when he held them in his dirty hands after he'd plucked them from the garden. They were large and colorful and just holding them made his stomach unclench and the weight in his heart lift by the smallest degree.

Seeing the flowers growing in bundles and rows by the sidewalk Jim walked down every week made him feel light when all he felt these days was dread. It made him feel nostalgic and homesick and like he never wanted to see a beautiful thing ever again because nothing could hold a candle to the lilacs and daisys and the mums that grew so freeing in this random garden on this random street.

But most of all, every time he plucked a flower from its nest of soil it made him feel like he was uncovering a treasure, a beautiful gift to be passed along. It made him feel happy.

Jim, always being someone who commits himself fully to anything he sets his mind to, was so wrapped around the idea of the beautiful flowers and so consumed with his own thoughts and his own feelings that he didn't stop to think that someone had planted these fragrant plants. He didn't think that someone lived in the house just across the yard. He didn't think that someone would be hurt by his theft. All he thought of was himself and his grief. And that was okay, to him, because his grief was grand and he was alone in this world and it didn't matter if he hurt other people because no one cared that they had hurt him.

Besides, the flowers weren't for him, never for him. He could never have anything so bright, so delicate. He destroyed delicate things. He deserved his small, dark home and his dark clothing and his colorless life. He was the moon. It was his brother who was the sun.

Sam was color. Sam was brightness. Sam was their mother's favorite (and somedays _only_ ) son. Sam was... _Sam_. He brought the life when all Jim felt was desth. Sam held him when their mother ignored him. He fought off the bullies when the picked on him. He listened to him when it felt like he could only confide in the walls of his bedroom. Sam was the only one who slipped him gifts on his birthday. When their mother was locked in her room and Jim was content to watch TV and not think about the day he was born being the same day his dad ran that stop sign.

Sam never spent much on his gifts but the thought was what made Jim's eyes widen and his heart race because it was a gift and no one ever got him gifts. Some years the gifts were homemade and others, as they grew, started being bought from the local stores. They were usually nothing, small little nothings that Jim cherished with all the love his small neglected heart could handle.

Sam was good in a world of horrible people. Sam everything Jim wanted to be. Sam was colorful and bright. Jim felt loved in a way he was never loved by his mother and a part of him will always be that little broken boy seeking acceptance and longing for love…

Jim tucked his handful of stolen flowers around in his fists and took a breath of them before walking away from the beautiful garden.

* * *

 _Okay, that was it!_

Leonard was done. He was _done_ with this monster and their greedy hands that kept destroying his daughter's garden. He was _done_ going out to his car and seeing bald spots in his garden that he knew JoJo had painstakingly planted large seeds with her tiny hands.

Leonard took up a spot next to his window and pulled out his phone. He didn't know who was taking his flowers or when they stopped by but he was damn sure going to stay on his perch every free minute he wasn't at the hospital or going to the bathroom.

He was going to find this bastard. He was going to call the police. He was going to shoot them. He was going to inject the person with a disease. He was going to... he didn't know what but he was just about mad enough to spit like his daddy taught him.

He sat like a determined man who was not going to let this go. His daughter deserved better.

* * *

After a week of watching his garden, Leonard perked up as he saw a blonde haired man hunched over on himself with his hands pressed into his pockets. The man walked slowly but confidently, like he knew where he was going and what he was going to do. Leonard perked up as he saw the man stop right in front of his house and sweep his eyes across his garden. Leonard's heart began to beat in his chest. This was it.

He waited to make sure this was the thief. He didn't want to be too trigger happy.

Then the man bent down on his knee and leaned forward going for the poppies.

Oh, _hell_ no!

Leonard was up so fast he heard the wooden chair fall onto its back. He flung the door open, it slammed against the outside wall loudly making the house shudder.

"Hey asshole! Hands off the poppies or I swear I will _fuck you up_!"

He yelled so loudly that the man looked up in shock and staggered backward awkwardly catching his legs together and falling on his butt. Leonard stomped across his yard waiving his finger. "What kind of man are you? Stealing flowers from a stranger's garden? Who even does that?!"

The man sputtered still sitting on the ground. A car drove down the road, slowed down and eyes peered out the window at them before passing by.

"I-I-uh..." the blond haired man had dark circles under his eyes making his face look slim and sunken. He looked terrified with his blue eyes the size of saucers and his mouth opening and closing as he tried to defend himself. Leonard closed his eyes and shook his head placing both of his hands on his hips. His jaw clenched as he attempted to cool himself off.

"Look," he started. "I understand if you want to get your girlfriend flowers and you're broke or something but please," he implored. "My daughter and I planted these."

The man was red faced with embarrassment now as he averted his eyes scratching at the back of his head. Leonard could see him clenching his teeth and – was that a tear in his eye? Leonard took a step forward, confused. He'd expected anger or denial but not tears. Maybe he was as scary like the nurses always told him. Or maybe this thief actually had a conscience.

The man swallowed and took a shaking breath. "I-it's not... I don't have a girlfriend," the man stuttered. "That not why I was… why I'm taking them."

"Okay," Leonard snapped. "Then can you tell me why on God's green earth you think it's alright to pluck my flowers from _my_ garden on _my_ property?"

"I... I..." the man stuttered again and Leonard felt himself growing annoyed.

" _Speak_ kid! What reason could be good enough to steal flowers from a little girl's garden?"

"I didn't know they were your daughters!" The man snapped loudly. Leonard rolled his eyes. The man collected himself standing up and dusting off the back of his legs.

"Who even are you?" Leonard barked at him.

The man licked his lips. "I'm Jim."

"Jim who?"

"Just Jim."

"I don't have time for your stupid ass clichéd statements _Just Jim_. Unless you can give me a good ass excuse for stealing my property I am calling the police."

The man, Jim, scuffed his sneakers on the cement. "These are for... Sam." He mumbled at the ground.

"Sam?" Leonard's annoyance rose impossibly higher. "Well great that just solves everything doesn't it? They're for Sam!"

Jim's eyes flashed up at Leonard in a moment of defiance that Jim quickly lost as he saw the fire in Leonard's own eyes. They were both silent for a few long minutes until finally Leonard snapped again.

"And who the hell is Sam?

"Sam is…" Jim started but stopped and scuffed at the ground again. He was silent and Leonard was just about brimming to burst when Jim seemed to steel himself and said, "I can show you?

"You can show me?" Leonard questioned in disbelief.

Jim nodded, "It's not far, just down the road." He pointed the way they would go.

Leonard looked at him like he was crazy but rolled his eyes, "Fine. Whatever. Just make it snappy I have an early shift tomorrow and I want to have enough time for the police to take my statement."

The blonde's eyes widened again but he nodded turning around and started walking down the sidewalk indicating with a jerk of his head for Leonard to follow, which he did mumbling to himself gruffly.

The walk, as it turned out, was indeed not far. As they passed house after house Jim's stride got more and more quick as if we was hyping himself up for what was to come. Leonard wished he had brought his gun, just in case this skinny guy was actually some sort of serial killer and he was being lead to a ditch. Luckily he had his cell phone clutched tight in hand ready to dial 911 if this guy turned out to be a flower stealing lunatic.

As they reached the end of Leonard's long street Jim turned left and kept walking. They were both silent for ten minutes more as they walked. Leonard looked around noticing they were leaving the main housing area and nearing the towns… cemetery? Leonard's heart sunk the closer they got to the cemetery then fully fell into his stomach when Jim turned and entered through a thin, rusted metal gate.

The day was a beautiful one with the sun setting a nice glow over the afternoon. But it all seemed to dim as Leonard walked deeper into the grave yard following after Jim's black leather clad back. Suddenly, Jim stopped at a small stone.

"This is Sam," Jim gestured to the grave marker with a flip of his hand. Leonard stared at the dark stone, slightly withered with age and smaller than most gravestones around the cemetery.

There were other flowers laid around the stone, but those looked old and dead. They crunched as Jim bent down to move them to the side emptying a place to put new fresh flowers against the granite. Leonard guessed those old flowers must've been from the last time Jim had been here, they looked like his flowers. He could tell by the shriveled sweet peas and long stemmed mums. The thing that surprised Leonard was that he didn't feel angered at the site of his old, crumpled flowers. The gravestone read Sam Kirk and two dates that Leonard shuttered at – they were too close together. Sam must've been twenty or twenty-one when he'd died. Under the dates were the regular gibberish about loving son and brother that Leonard could remember having the stone etchers write on his daddy's grave.

Jim set the old flowers carefully aside as if they were fragile and the stone was precious. Then he sat back on his heals speaking to Leonard but looking at the grave.

"Sam was my brother," was all he said for a long moment.

"Shit kid," Leonard felt tears collect at the sides of his eyes. He knew what it was like to lose someone so close. It had only been five years since his daddy died. Jim stood up from his crouched position, buried his hands in his pockets and sniffed rubbing at his nose.

"Brain aneurysm," he explained. "Sitting next to me on the couch."

The wind rustled the dead flowers next to Sam's small stone. Leonard looked around feeling like a heel. Jim turned to him with tears freely running from his impossibly blue eyes.

"Sam was the only one who ever really bought me gifts, you see, and when he died I felt… I don't know. I felt like I needed to keep bringing him gifts too. I went to the store and looked at their flowers and even bought a few here and there but… yours were always just so…" he tampered off trying to put is tongue on the right word. Leonard stayed silent letting him speak.

"So bright and colorful. Beautiful."

"Yeah, well," Leonard started rubbing at the back of his neck and taking a deep breath. "My daughter Joanna knows how to pick out the right seeds."

Jim chuckled taking his own lungful of air, "She sure does."

Both men lapsed into a comfortable silence taking in the calm surroundings of the old cemetery full of grave markers, flowers in different stages of decay and the occasional car driving past.

"I'm really sorry, man," Jim said.

"Leonard," Leonard extended his hand feeling a sort of kinship to this stranger. "Leonard McCoy."

Jim looked at the offered hand for a moment before gently reaching out his own to shake. "Jim Kirk."

Leonard had a brief flash of memory behind his eyes. Of a Sam… Sam _Kirk_ being wheeled into the hospital, eyes closed and face a white sheet just as Leonard was finishing his shift. He had offered to stay but between the nurses and the new doctor on call working together to push him out after his twenty hours of being in the hospital he surrendered and collected his things before leaving. By the time he arrived back to the hospital and looked at the charts of his patients there was no Kirk. He'd already been taken to the morgue.

After shaking hands Leonard looked at Jim thoughtfully. He was ragged, his hair too long, his eyes too sunken, his face one of a man who was alone in a world that liked to beat him down.

"Why don't you come back to my place. I can make you a cup of coffee. You look like you need it."

Jim's eyes lit up as if this were the first kindness granted to him in a long, long time. He nodded, "O-Okay."

"C'mon, kid."

Then together they walked away from the grave marking a man whose life was cut too short. Shoulder to shoulder they walked from the cemetery and across the road.

"My flowers will grow back," Leonard said casually as they walked back towards his house. "Between God and the rain, they'll grow back."

* * *

The next time Jim walked by Leonard's house he kept his head down not wanting to break the small truce the two had built over a week ago. He had planned to just walk on by and not bring anything to Sam on this visit. He just needed to be around his big brother. Maybe talk to him for a while. Tell him about his upcoming job interview.

From the house came the sound of a door opening and feet running through the grass. Jim looked up expecting Leonard to be coming out to make sure he wasn't about to steal his flowers again. He was surprised to see a little girl with long brown hair making her way towards him. Behind her stood Leonard with his arms crossed and hip cocked against the open door frame. The little girl had big brown eyes, just like her father.

"Hi! I'm Joanna!" she announced as she got closer. Jim smiled at her and offered a small hello in return.

Joanna looked up at him with a broad smile and that was when Jim noticed she held something behind her back. In a quick motion she untucked her hand from behind her back and presented Jim with a small glass vase overflowing with bright flowers.

"Daddy and I picked these this morning. They're for Sam!" she announce proudly. Jim's breath caught in his throat. "Daddy said the vase would help the flowers stay pretty for longer."

She came forward practically shoving the bundle of flowers into Jim's shocked hands. He looked up meeting Leonard's eye at the door.

"Daddy also said that he's making dinner tonight and to come back and eat with us when you're done or else."

Jim laughed, and honest to goodness laugh through his cloudy eyes. His chin quivered as Joanna turned around and was gone back to the house just as quickly as she'd come.

"Dinner will be ready in about an hour and your skinny ass better be at my table by then!" Leonard called to Jim before ushering Joanna back inside and closing the door with one last smile to Jim.

Jim looked down at the flowers and swallowed starting his familiar walk towards the cemetery and knowing he would be back to this house and to this garden. He felt the ice cemented around his heart shift and for the first time in a long time Jim felt happy. He felt wanted. He felt... loved.


End file.
